I refuse to believe he's shunning the limelight and a sniff of power at this very moment in time. He's far too narcissistic for that. You can just see him parachuted into a Tory seat at the next election and brought into very right-wing government as a front bencher.

Got to wonder who takes over as leader of the UKIPs. They're hardly a party awash with political heavyweights or many of life's great thinkers.

Leadsom will be backed to be the new PM by Murdoch papers, Telegraph and probably the Mail. Becomes PM, makes Farage a Tory peer. Arron Banks, the guy bankrolling UKIP, has backed Leadsom so could probably be persuaded to shift allegiances to the Tories. Meanwhile UKIP, under a libertarian leader with completely fringe politcs and with next to no funding, fade into obscurity. The Tories, with Farage on their side and campaigning throughout the north, basically copy wholesale UKIP politics and try to take the voters in the north who defected to UKIP from Labour.

I've picked return as UKIP leader on 14th August
umlaut_ampersand has picked terminal illness
Will has went for tory frontbench
Steved has went for a general sense of dread
Still_here has went for a Murdoch-backed Leadsom to be PM, Farage to be a tory peer, Banks to back the tories and UKIP to fade into obscurity